Likely depends on the country - in England, on a house sale, either party can back out after an offer is accepted, free of consequences, until contracts are exchanged.
My wife's family is selling a house in Italy and it blew my mind that when you say you want to buy the house you have to give a portion of money (in this case I think it was 12000 euro) which you do not get back if the deal falls through and you don't buy the house.
The above not very precise as I am not involved in it and not especially interested. But the detail stuck with me as one of those other cultures are strange things.
In the US you have to put down an "earnest money deposit", which is sort of the same thing. You can get it back, but there are usually very specific rules about what conditions warrant getting it back, and "I didn't like the house" isn't one of them.
In all offers I submitted and both houses I bought, that was the case.
That also allows the buyer to get out for any reason within the financing contingency window (by just not complying with all the ridiculous paperwork demands from the lender, "oops, sorry, mortgage didn't end up coming through")
That would be a "Mortgage Contingency," which is common in California. Yes, you get back your earnest money if there is a mortgage contingency in the contract but you can't get a loan.
Does this work? For house buying, solicitors are often taking on first-time clients, and they don't have a lot of leverage against the client if the client decides to renege on the deal.
Solicitors get paid for work done until that point regardless, and I doubt sellers have that information when deciding whether to accept an offer, and they are who makes the choice to accept.
Sellers also pull out frequently - had that happen to me a few times. It's frustrating but it happens.
